Margaret Geller: Mapping The Universe
The Story Collider
Story Collider, Inc.
4.4 • 824 Ratings
🗓️ 22 May 2014
⏱️ 17 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
As a grad student, Margaret Geller is invited to a private island off the coast of Maine by legendary physicist John Wheeler and his wife, for a trip she'll never forget. Margaret Geller is an astrophysicist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. She received her Ph.D. in physics from Princeton University in 1975. Geller is best known for her pioneering 3D maps of the distribution of galaxies in the nearby universe. These maps revealed surprising large patterns in the universe marked by galaxies like the Milky Way. Geller is an internationally renowned public speaker. Her prize-winning films include the first computer-animated voyages through the universe based on scientific measurements. Geller is a member of the National Academy of Sciences. She has received a MacArthur Fellowship and many other prestigious awards. Help keep us going! If you love the podcast, please donate here: http://www.patreon.com/thestorycollider
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | A science story, huh? |
| 0:04.0 | Is NYU a scientist? |
| 0:06.0 | I felt it. |
| 0:07.0 | I was so... |
| 0:09.0 | And I just thought, well... |
| 0:10.0 | It was that golden moment. |
| 0:13.0 | Because science was on my side. |
| 0:15.0 | Hey, everyone. Hey everyone, I'm Ben Lilly, and welcome to The Story Collider, |
| 0:27.1 | where we bring your true personal stories about science. |
| 0:30.3 | This week's stories from Margaret Geller. |
| 0:32.2 | The story was recorded in May 2014 at the Davis Square Theater in Somerville, Massachusetts |
| 0:37.1 | as part of the Cambridge Science Festival. |
| 0:40.3 | I grew up in the Sputnik era. In 1957, the Soviet Union launched a tiny satellite. All it did was |
| 0:58.0 | go bleep, but that scared the United States into a vast investment in physics research and physics |
| 1:05.7 | education. Things looked bright for people who were interested in studying the physical sciences, |
| 1:13.6 | and my father, who was a scientist, encouraged me to become a scientist. |
| 1:19.6 | By 1970, when I graduated from the University of California at Berkeley with a degree in physics, the promise |
| 1:29.3 | was over. The United States invaded Cambodia that spring. There was no graduation ceremony |
| 1:36.3 | at Berkeley for fear of violent demonstrations. Science budgets were steeply cut. Graduate schools were decreasing their enrollments. |
| 1:47.0 | People with PhDs in physics were driving taxi cabs. |
| 1:51.0 | In that depressing environment, I was thinking about applying to graduate school in physics. |
| 2:00.0 | With the odd wisdom of a 22-year-old, |
... |
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